I have draws full of bits of gorgeous papers, leftover from print and drawing projects, little odd offcuts, recycled prints and drawings I wasn’t happy with and every so often I have a rummage and pull out some of these lovely bits to see what I can do with them. A few months ago I found 8 small pieces, cut from a failed collagraph experiment on a heavyweight Bockingford paper. The original print was heavily embossed in black and white so I put a layer of white acrylic over the surface and then brushed a walnut ink wash across in stripes and then did some random scribbles in a thin drawing pen. And then I put them away in one of my drawers until they emerged from a rummage a few days ago. I’ve been working on a series of drawings of Neolithic stone monuments across South Wales out in the field, literally, and the past few days, I’ve been redrawing thumbnails from my sketches. But today I grabbed some of my little bits of recycled paper and started to draw stone shapes from imagination with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens and a 6B Graphite stick. I don’t often draw this way, I prefer to draw from life, but this is an interesting little development so I’ll stick with it for a while until I finish all 8 pieces of paper.

I have spent the past few months travelling across South Wales with Rhondda-born archaeologist Dewi Bowen and Swansea film maker Melvyn Williams, hunting the wild megalith, accompanied by my portable drawing board, portfolio of Fabriano paper and a bag full of assorted artist’s materials. Dewi is researching his latest book on Neolithic monuments and Melvyn is making a documentary film of our literary and artistic adventures. We are following the legendary trail of the boar hunt, y Twrch Trwyth from the Mabinogion, recording the Bronze Age ancestral stones that those ancient hunters would have encountered.